there's a light at each end of this tunnel
by Some Enchanted Evening
Summary: 'He supposes they do look like the idyllic family at that moment, the two women to the right of him fast asleep. It's likely no one would believe just what they were flying home from; it's likely no one would believe that this is actually the first time all three of them have been on an airplane together.' Bryan Mills, between the bathhouse and the 'Three Weeks Later' placard.


**A/N:** Well, originally I was working on a different story, but I ran into writer's block with that and this piece kind of crowded my mind instead! So here's my first attempt at Bryan's voice, in the three weeks between the last two scenes of the second movie.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine, never mine, you know the drill! 

* * *

The flight attendant smiles approvingly at him, even as Bryan waves her and her cart of beverages on. He supposes they do look like the idyllic family at that moment, the two women to the right of him fast asleep. It's likely no one would believe just what they were flying home from; it's likely no one would believe that this is actually the first time all three of them have been on an airplane together.

Kim has the window seat, and had watched Istanbul fade away before curling up in the sort of ball that only teenagers seem able to manage, her long legs tucked under her and her head resting in Lenny's lap. Earlier, Lenny had been absent-mindedly stroking Kim's hair, but now she is asleep too, her head falling down onto Bryan's shoulder, her cheek pressed against him, hiding the scrapes on her face and neck.

He wishes sleep would come so easily for him. None of them had slept the night before, sitting together in his room and watching the sun rise through the window before heading obscenely early to the airport to await the first flight that Sam had pulled some strings to book them on. He owes a lot to Sam, yet again – he'll have to buy him a beer when they arrive home. A case of beer. His very own bar.

His mind is still live-wired, unable to relax, reliving the last two days, counting up the mistakes and missteps. It's always been that way, when he still worked and he would return from an assignment; it's what kept him sharp, made him better. He never made a mistake twice, but his mistakes have never bothered him as much as the ones he's made since his retirement do; but then, the stakes had never been so high. He sits stone still in his seat, nudging Lenny's head back every so often when she lolls forward, but in his mind he reruns the last few days, cataloguing all the ways he could have made things better, and all the ways they might have been worse.

Every bone in his body aches, reminding him that he's older, slower, not as effective. He can't keep up with his thoughts anymore, and even on the quiet plane, his brain careens along the streets of Istanbul until he feels as though he is spinning out of control, all from the safety of his seat.

It's unacceptable – control, in this business, is first and foremost.

But it hadn't been business, this time or last. 

* * *

They have a layover at JFK, an overnight stay before tomorrow's early-morning departure. There's a hotel beside the airport, and they arrive early enough that Kim makes some noise about going into the city, because she's never been to New York and she's seventeen and far more resilient than Bryan gives her credit for.

All of that still earns her a resounding 'no.'

There's no two rooms nearby each other on such short notice, so they take one, a small efficiency with two queen-sized beds, and he takes the one by the door while Kim and Lenny take the one by the window. It's no frills, especially compared to the extravagance of the hotel in Istanbul with the large sitting rooms and sweeping views, but the stark simplicity suits their moods.

There's a restaurant in the lobby, but they order up to the room. They'd received enough odd looks in the airport, sidelong glances that had put him even more on edge until Kim had leaned over to him and muttered, "It kind of looks like you and Mom went a few rounds in the ring."

Lenny had touched the cut under his eye. "At least I can give as good as I get," she'd said dryly, and it had been a twisted joke but he'd laughed anyway. It had felt good to laugh, but he doesn't have a particular desire to sit in a restaurant and have their server wonder what kind of knock-down fight they had gotten into.

After they eat, Kim sits on the bed staring at her phone while Lenny showers, and Bryan perches next to her, putting a hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. He can feel her breathe there, and it's comforting. "You okay, baby?" he asks quietly, because she hasn't spoken or moved in almost ten minutes – she's bounced back remarkably well since they all reunited at the Embassy, but he wonders if everything is really just hitting her now.

"Yeah," Kim answers slowly, and she raises her head, studying him as though trying to decide whether she should continue or leave it at that.

He's silent, waiting, even though a thousand questions pop to the front of his mind, needs for reassurance. He's trying not to push, difficult as it is, because the only thing more frightening than not knowing everything about his daughter's life is the idea of her pushing him away because he's trying to do exactly that.

"At the pool…I was talking to Jamie on Skype when you called," she says finally – slowly, carefully, and despite his attempts to keep his face nonchalant, Bryan can feel his spine stiffen as soon as she says the name _Jamie_. There isn't necessarily anything wrong with the boy in particular (_too scruffy where are his parents doesn't he have a job he should be at his eyes are a little glassy maybe he does drugs_), at least nothing that Sam's routine poking had dredged up, but Bryan knows himself well enough to know that he'll never be okay with Kim dating. She's his little girl – there isn't a boy in the world good enough for her. "I told him I would call him right back," she continues, "and, well, obviously I didn't."

"So…you could call him now?" Bryan suggests, the words difficult to spit out because sitting here in a quiet room while his daughter chats up her boyfriend…that's a whole different kind of torture. But he's wise enough to say what he _should_, rather than what he _wants to _at that moment.

"And say what, Dad?" she replies flatly, raising her eyebrows, her brow scrunching. "How could I possibly explain this to him? I haven't even told him about…about what happened in Paris."

"You don't owe an explanation to anyone," he tells her fiercely, just the thought of Paris making his stomach clench, and he slips his arm around her even as she discreetly rolls her eyes. He hates that the world can be divided into places where she's been hurt, when the only thing he ever wanted to do was keep her safe. Paris, and now Istanbul, are just names of cities to her classmates, but he's afraid that they'll always remind Kim of her stolen innocence.

That's what they'll always make Bryan think of.

He misses that about her, the bright-eyed way she would look at the world. He's fiercely proud of the woman she's becoming, but he wishes more than anything she could have held onto that childlike trust for just a little while longer.

"Do you really believe that?" she asks him quietly. "That no one deserves to have their questions answered?"

He hesitates, because it feels very much like he's walking into a trap, before replying carefully, "I don't think a boy you've been seeing for just a few months has any right to demand any answers from you at all."

"If I had asked you what you did, when I was younger, what you _really_ did, would you have answered me truthfully?" she asks suddenly, and he winces, _ah, there's the trap._

He rubs his thumb over her shoulder, turning the question over in his head. _No_, he knows, of course he wouldn't have. He'd have wanted to keep Kim away from the salacious details of his work, keep her image of him as untarnished as he could. His hands are far from clean, and he doesn't think he could have admitted that to his daughter. "I told you last year," he says, evading as best he can. "A preventer."

"But I had no idea what that even meant," Kim points out, and he sighs.

"I'm your father," he says quietly. "It's my job to protect you, including from things I didn't think you were ready to hear."

"Did Mom even really know?" Kim presses.

"That's between us," he answers, closing the subject, but he can tell by the flicker in her eyes that she knows his real answer – _no, again_. 

* * *

He isn't used to sleeping with other people in the room.

So the creak of the floorboards has him instantly awake, eyes snapping open, and he's tense, reaching to snap on the light, before he makes out Lenny's silhouette in the darkness, framed against the light from the streets that seep in around the corners of the curtains. She's standing on Kim's side of the bed, leaning over her, a hand on her hair. She stays there for a long moment, while Kim breathes evenly and deeply, and when she turns towards him, he pretends to still be asleep until oddly, worryingly, he hears the click of the door behind her as she leaves the room.

He waits a moment, and then another, before he sits up, and this time he does flick on the light. Kim doesn't stir, sprawled on the belly.

He checks three times that the door is properly locked before heading down the hall, down the elevator. It isn't a long search – he finds her in the lobby, curled up on one of the uncomfortable looking sofas in her tank top and sweatpants, a book in her hands. The lobby is fairly deserted, but those who do pass by do so without looking her way, hurried travelers on their way home, businessmen with their phones glued to their ears despite the lateness of the hour.

He could leave her be. Logically, he knows that here no one will bother her and she'll wander back eventually, and maybe she needs time to decompress on her own. But he can't help but worry – not about anything external, but about what's going on in her head, and so hesitantly, he approaches, calling her name quietly so she won't be startled.

"You're not supposed to be reading. Doctor's orders, remember?" He taps the cover of her book, as though to jog her memory. No reading, no TV, no computer for a week would help speed recovery of the concussion, the doctor at the Embassy had told them.

Of course, that leaves nothing to do but think, and he can see how that could be a trial right about now.

She looks up, smiling wanly. Her face is scrubbed clean, and that coupled with her casual sleepwear reminds him too keenly of when they were married, when he would come home late after weeks away and she'd be asleep on the couch, waiting. It pulls at his chest, squeezes at his heart with sharp regret. It's a part of her life that he's not privy to anymore, and seeing it makes him miss her with a ferocity that is normally dulled when she is putting on the airs of the glamorous, unattainable Lenore St. James – it's still there, it's always there, but it doesn't always _pierce_the way it does right now.

"I couldn't just sit there and stare at the wall in the dark any longer," she explains, and she adds apologetically, "I didn't mean to wake you."

He shakes his head, and she draws up her knees closer to her chest. He takes the invitation, and he sits beside her, arm draped over the back of the couch. "Couldn't sleep either. Kim, on the other hand, is out like a light." He raises his eyebrows. "Tell you what, we have one tough kid."

"Mmm," she answers quietly, and her eyes slide away, gazing off to something that he can't see. "She takes after you that way."

He frowns, at the unspoken self-reproach, and he puts his hand on her knee, squeezing comfortingly. "You too," he says seriously, and the corner of her lips twitches up in a little smirk. He isn't sure what she expected of herself, but in his mind the fact that she'd survived and hadn't broken under her fear is something that most people wouldn't be able to say. She's resilient – always has been. "You okay?" he presses gently, and immediately feels foolish. Of course she isn't, of course Kim isn't…but he worries, regardless. It's something he doesn't know how to fix – he can bring them home, but he can't put their lives back together the way that they once were.

"Yeah. I'm okay," she replies quietly, but her brief smile is fleeting, flickering quickly off her face.

"Are you?" he presses, and the words are difficult to get out. They haven't been able to speak openly since he found her in that bathhouse. On the ride to the Embassy, she had still been coming around to lucidity, and when they arrived and been reunited with Kim, she had slipped into mothering mode and brushed aside Kim's concerns, more focused on making sure their daughter truly was all right. He's counted the moments between leaving her behind and finding her again in his mind a thousand times. He doesn't know what happened to her in the inbetween, and part of him doesn't want to know, not when there's nothing he can do at this point, no way he can retroactively protect her from it. But nor would he want her to hold it inside, letting it fester into something even more ugly and painful – darkness thrives in darkness, he knows that all too well.

"I'm okay," she repeats, and then her hand lands on his chest, fingers spread wide. "Bryan. I'm okay," she says again, softly this time, her eyes seeking his, and he releases a breath he hadn't known he was holding. She knows his unspoken question, and she's answering him in turn; _I'm okay_.

"Good," he answers, and his voice is a little hoarse.

Her fingers curl in his shirt, making a fist over his heart, and she leans into him, fitting into the curve of his arm, her cheek pressed to his shoulder. Her skin is cold to the touch and he rubs her arm, trying to work some warmth back there. There's still that need, to touch, to assure themselves of the other's solidity, _still here, still breathing_. Each heartbeat only serves to remind how closely they brushed disaster – the blade sliding another inch or two along Lenny's throat, the gunman after Kim on the rooftop a hair faster on the draw, Kim speeding towards the train tracks but not quickly enough.

They were lucky. He had been sloppy.

"I'm sorry this happened," he murmurs, slipping his hand up to the nape of her neck. She feels vulnerable there, and it makes him nervous and protective at the same time. "That, ah, wasn't what I hoped for when I invited you two to join me."

She tips her face up to look at him, her eyes serious and searing, pinning him to the spot. "What were you hoping for?" she asks quietly, and it takes him completely by surprise.

He lets out a little huff of laughter, his fingers combing slowly through her hair. "You really want to get into that right now?" Everything is raw just then, too close to the surface, and if they touch it he isn't sure if it will spark like a live wire or crumble like dust. He knows why he invited them both to Istanbul, and if Lenny hadn't known before, she certainly does now. She's asking because she wants to hear it, and the words are right there, _I wanted to see what it would be like to go as a family of three, I wanted to see if we could ever be that again, I've missed you_.

His thoughts have been shifting since he moved to Los Angeles, as he slowly started reconciling the fact that Kim wasn't a little girl anymore but a young woman. It's difficult, and some days he manages better than others, but he's coming around to it. He's been less rooted in the past, less nostalgic and wistful with each day that goes by for all the time and years he lost, more focused on the present and the future. When he thinks of Kim, he simultaneously sees her as the six-year-old missing her front teeth and the seventeen-year-old high school senior, and every stage between. He sees her as a newborn, swaddled in pink blankets. He sees her in her wedding dress, in a day that's hopefully still years away. And Lenny…he thinks of her, too, and not just as part of his past. She's always been a part of his future, too – that's what happens when you have a child together – but lately his thoughts have been more…concrete, and less wisps of an intangible might-have-been.

Those feelings aren't new. They've been there for over a decade, worse since he brought Kim home and Lenny's long spell of iciness towards him had finally thawed, and knocking him clear on his ass when she told him that she and the perfect husband were separating. And he knows they'll still be there in a few weeks, when her reaction won't be steeped in relief or gratitude – that isn't what he wants. The last thing he wants is for her to feel pressured or indebted somehow, as though his taking care of her is contingent on a shift in their relationship, rather than something he'll always do regardless. Even when their relationship was at its most tenuous and she could barely look at him, there's never been another woman who could even come close to what she means to him. There's too much between them, time and history and emotions and their _daughter_. And no matter where they go from here, that'll always remain the same, and that's something he needs to know she understands before they take a step in any direction.

He can be patient; he can wait. It's difficult when everything seems close enough to reach out and grasp, but it's also too important for him to do anything else. He's spent the last twenty years fucking up his personal life, and he's trying to guide it back on course through a minefield. He's determined to not misstep.

He can feel the curve of her lips against his neck when she smiles, and she murmurs in agreement, "Maybe not right now." And they're good for a long moment, quiet and at rest and he can feel his heart slow just a bit to match her soft breathing, the adrenaline that'd plagued him on the plane finally starting to seep away, bit by bit. He's left bone-weary in exchange, as though he could sleep for the next three days. It would be easy to do it right there – sleeping in strange places had been part of the job, and Lenny feels soft and warm curled against him and her breath is evening out, suggesting the tendrils of sleep are starting to pull at her, too. It's so tempting to just let themselves _be_, and only the thought of Kim upstairs drives him to nudge Lenny's arm.

"C'mon," he says quietly. "Let's head back before Kim wakes up and assumes the worst when she sees we're both missing."

Lenny nods, lifting her head, and he goes to stand, wincing at the soreness in his muscles, the stiffness in his joints. She catches him before he pulls away completely, her hand sliding to the back of his neck in a mimic of the way he had been touching her just moments before. Her eyes are overbright and damp, and from this close he can see the wetness clinging to her lashes. She nips her bottom lip to stop its trembling, and he keeps himself from repeating his question, _are you okay?_

"Thank you, Bryan," she says softly, seriously, and he doesn't know how to answer. What happened lies heavily between them, a weight pulling them down, and her fingers press more firmly against his nape, as though she feels it, too.

He nods his head once, a silent acknowledgement, and she smiles a bit – tremulously, the way she had in the airport a year ago when he had brought Kim home, the way she had when he had told her Kim was safe just the day before, but a smile still.

He brushes his lips against her forehead, and feels her exhale against his throat. _Still alive_.

* * *

They share a cab from the airport, and even though his apartment is closer, he instructs the driver to go to the house first. The fare'll be higher, but seeing them home is the final step, and he wouldn't feel right just sending them on their way. Neither of the ladies complain and they crowd into the backseat, Kim in the middle, her head resting tiredly on Lenny's shoulder. They're quiet, on that car ride, and the driver keeps looking back to check on them, but it's a peaceful sort of quiet, one where words just aren't needed.

When they pull up the house, there's a black Mercedes in the driveway.

Kim frowns, her brow furrowed in thought, and Lenny sighs, her thumb and forefinger coming up to pinch the bridge of her nose, and he can feel the tension in the car, can feel her bracing herself. And it feels terrible, because he knows how exhausted they all are and now it is as though he's sending her into the fray, another battle to fight. It's been only a week since he last saw that car, peeling down the street, and Lenny had answered the door in tears. It hadn't been his business but he'd hated to see her cry and that had been the onus that started the whole thing. If he'd kept his mouth shut, Kim and Lenny would have been safe in Los Angeles and he would have dealt with the men determined to pick him off as need be.

He knows, logically, it isn't his fault but there are still times that he thinks of how he could have prevented this whole mess in the first place.

"Do you want me to come in?" he asks as they pull the suitcases from the trunk, and Lenny shakes her head.

"I can handle this," she replies, and it's probably for the best. He's still too on edge, and he doesn't completely trust that his mind will be able to separate a merely unpleasant situation from a dangerous one. He has no idea how much or how little Stuart knows – if Lenny even told him she and Kim were leaving the country, and if so, were they were going and with whom – and Bryan has to let her navigate this alone.

For him, it always seems to come back to that same lesson.

Kim gives him a long suffering look, and he wraps her in a hug, putting his cheek to the top of her head. "Driving lesson on Saturday?" she asks, and he raises his eyebrows.

"We can take a little break from lessons if you want," he offers, surprised. He's been the one thus far pushing to schedule driving lessons every Saturday, and after his barking at her as they tore through the streets of Istanbul, he had expected her to have no desire to sit behind the wheel of a car again for quite some time. Part of him is glad, the part that wants her to be able to dust off all the traumas of the last two years, but part of him is worried that she's trying for too much, too soon.

She shakes her head, and her eyes are steely. "No, I'm ready," she tells him firmly, and although he's been telling himself it for the last two years, that's the moment that he really realizes that his Kimmy isn't a child anymore.

He nods slowly, mulling it over in his mind. "Then I'll see you Saturday," he says.

He waits until they go into the house, and a beat longer – waiting, waiting – before getting back into the cab, alone. 

* * *

Bryan has never been so aware of how devoid of life, of personality, his apartment is until he returns after Istanbul.

Kim's room is the only one that offers any hint as to the person who lives there. She doesn't spend the night often, but 'not often' is still a step up from 'never.' She's made little changes, since she started coming over, because he'd picked out the curtains and the bedspread and the pictures with a little girl in mind, not a young adult. The pink is almost garish, in retrospect, but she's left it as is, tossing a big grey and white chevron blanket over the width of the bed to mute the color a bit. The curtains are there still, but the artwork is gone, replaced by posters slapped on with tape and pictures with friends stuck on with push pins – it'll be coming out of his security deposit whenever, if ever, he leaves, but he doesn't mention it. The desk is piled with DVDs, scattered with notebooks, headphones, odds and ends from her purse.

But the rest of the apartment, there's little to no sign of who might live there. There are pictures of Kim – her third birthday party, riding a pony at six, dressed as an angel at seven for the Christmas pageant – but little else. No pictures from the last decade, no knick-knack souvenirs from friends or brought back from vacations, barely any dishes in the cupboard because he gets take-out more often than not and when he does cook, it's usually only for himself. The bookshelf is full but non-descript, and he hasn't read half the novels there, ones he picked up and then never had the opportunity to start before work pulled him away, and now he keeps only out of habit and some sort of misplaced guilt.

It's the place he lives, but it's missing all of those elements that would make it a _home_. When Kim comes to visit, filling the space with her laughter and noise and her things – that's the only time it feels close to anything real.

It's probably an accurate representation of his life thus far, the last dozen years spent wandering, staying nowhere long enough to make it a home or even accumulate the things that would _make _It feel like one. But perhaps it's time to start settling his roots in Los Angeles.

"Say cheese," he tells her one Saturday, pulling out the camera on a whim as she sits behind the wheel of the car and idles, waiting for him to get in.

"Ugh, really, Dad?" She pulls a face, and that's what he captures – her tongue poked out, her eyes crossed, and she makes another one when he shows it to her. "Oh, God, please, please delete that."

"Sure," he tells her, and does the exact opposite. He wonders how long it will take her to notice it framed next to one of her childhood pictures – the little girl he remembers besides the woman she's turning into. It's time to start filling in the years inbetween, he realizes.

It's the tiniest of steps, but it's in the right direction.

* * *

He goes to pick up Kim for her driver's test – third time is the charm, he _prays _– and Stuart is there.

Stuart is always fucking there anymore.

He doesn't know what it means. He can't even _ask _what it means, because the bottom line is that it isn't any of his business. He doesn't know if he's moved back in, or if he's just there during the day, or if he's only there on the days Bryan comes to get Kim. Maybe Lenny asks him to be there. Hell if he knows.

All he does know is that there is a weird, uncomfortable energy as the three of them wait in the kitchen, after Kim had called down that she needed five more minutes. It's never been easy, but it's been more tolerable than this before, and now none of them speak. Stuart looks at him with a scrutinizing expression, as though he's a puzzle to be solved, and Bryan stares back unabashedly, and Lenny sits with her arms crossed and looks at no one at all.

Finally, Stuart speaks. "I never did get to thank you, Bryan, for what you did. Again." His lips curve into a small smile, but it never reaches his eyes, still suspicious, still studying. "We're so lucky you do…what you do."

Bryan doesn't answer, which is probably for the best, as the first replies that come to his mind are anything but courteous. The mere fact that Stuart is thanking him gets his hackles up – as though he did anything for Stuart's sake, as though he had ever been a blip on Bryan's radar.

"Yes, well," Stuart adds, when they all sit in silence for a moment longer, "we probably all just need some time to regroup." _We, _he says, and Bryan knows exactly what he's implying, what he's politely suggesting, and Bryan keeps his gaze fixed, meeting the unspoken challenge. Others might be cowed by Stuart's wealth, his connections, but Bryan's seen too much in his life to be fazed by a businessman throwing his weight around.

Stuart reaches out, perhaps to take Lenny's hand, but her fingers and her eyes slide away and he's left grasping at air. He raps his knuckles against the counter instead, as though that had been his intent all along.

"I'll go check on Kim," Lenny says distractedly, sliding from her stool.

Bryan follows her without bothering to excuse himself, and he catches her arm by the door, before she can call up the stairs.

"Lenny," he says quietly, conscious of the fact that Stuart is still in the kitchen, that Kim'll be coming down the stairs any moment, "if you want me to…" he trails off, waving his hand vaguely as he works to find the words, "to leave you alone, so you can figure things out with Stuart, then I'll do it. I'll do that." He fixes her with a steely stare then, and he plants his hand on the doorframe next to her shoulder – she hasn't made a move to go, but he doesn't want to give her the option just yet. "But only if you tell me to," he adds firmly. "Not because _he _tells me to. You."

Her eyes slide to the staircase before returning to his, her gaze steady. She's never been intimidated by his intensity – she hasn't always liked it, but she always meets him head-on, and there aren't many people in the world he can say that about. "That's not what I want," she answers softly and he kisses her before he can think better of it, the way he should have in New York, quick and hard with his hand clasped at the back of her neck, over her hair. She makes a soft sound of surprise but her hands curl around the collar of his shirt, fingers brushing against the skin of his neck. Her lips are warm in a way he's thought about since Istanbul, and he can smell the perfume from behind her ear, and it's all too much and not enough, brief as it is. He puts his free hand to her waist, and something that feels like relief bubbles in his chest.

Her eyes don't open right away when he pulls back, and he briefly rests his forehead to hers. Then she looks up at him without pulling away, and her face is so close, close enough that her breath hits his lips when she releases it, and even after twenty years, he's still caught off guard sometimes by how beautiful she is. He thinks of kissing her again, of how much he wants to, but he hears a door shut upstairs, the creak of footsteps, and instead he swallows hard and takes a step back, giving her some space.

For now. Just for now. Because he had meant what he said, that he would back off if she told him to, if that was what she wanted, much as it would have hurt. But if she doesn't want that, then he sure the hell isn't walking away again. The idea that Stuart thinks he can intimidate him away is laughable.

He can fight. He's good at that.


End file.
